Four of the top six recruiters for AI professionals in the UK are universities.
Data released by job site Indeed shows that Imperial College London makes up 7.4 per cent of AI job listings on the site, followed by Amazon, who made up 4.9 per cent.
Oxford, Cambridge and University College London and IBM make up the top six companies competing hard to recruit AI talent to their organisations.
Shawn Bose, general manager at Indeed Prime said that the number of AI jobs being created by universities is “striking”.
“With AI technology still in its infancy, academic researchers are racing to discover its full potential. Just as the genesis of Silicon Valley came when the worlds of scientific research and business collided at California’s Stanford University, we could be seeing a similar pattern beginning to emerge with AI in the UK.”
The job site’s data indicates that AI skills are more in demand in the UK than in any other developed economy, “outstripping” its US counterpart.
Indeed’s UK site currently lists three times as many AI vacancies as it did three years ago, with candidate interest in AI-based jobs doubling since 2015.
“Artificial intelligence sits at the heart of Britain’s tech boom, and the UK has emerged as a world leader in the creation of both AI technology and jobs”, said Bose.
“The combination of high salaries and the chance to develop transformative technology continues to attract some of the brightest and best professionals to careers in AI. While automation will inevitably change the world of work beyond recognition, for now the AI technology behind it is creating thousands of job opportunities for highly skilled, and therefore well paid, individuals.”